JP Bikes

JP itself boasts great places to bike, such as the Southwest Corridor path, the Jamaicaway path, the Arboretum, and Franklin Park. However, it can be quite daunting trying to bike from JP to elsewhere within and near Boston. Our intention for creating the map was to show places to ride within Jamaica Plain and offer suggested routes for getting from JP to various places of interest. The map, which is available as a tab on the top of each page, is intended to be a “living” document, and your input is not only welcome but necessary. I don’t claim to know the best route from JP to South Station, since I still get lost or get caught on one way roads!

Our education committee will brainstorm to come up with the most common destinations and agree on one or more routes to get there by bike. In the near future, our intent is to implement a “forum” on the maps page which will provide a convenient mechanism for site visitors to comment on map routes, suggest new ones, or request that we provide a suggested route to a destination of the visitor’s choice. For now, you can add comments to this blog post to do any of these things.

The map itself is available from a tab at the top of this page, and can is also at this link.

So! I think you’ll find the site now much easier to both look at and navigate. Here’s a quick run-down on our features:

“About” will ostensibly explain soon exactly what it is JP Bikes has set out to do. In a nutshell, we want to give bikers in Jamaica Plain a place to come for rides, education, and, most importantly, community. Through that community we can foster not only more and better events, but also city-wide bike advocacy.

“Committees” – This page includes a list of the sub-groups we’ve formed to help members (like yourself!) get involved in activities, should you care to do a little beyond enjoying the ride.

“JP Bike Map” – here’s a map that a kind member started for us where we will be posting the best routes in and out of JP. We may add more and more specialized maps as necessary. If you’ve got an idea for a route, just let us know!

“Gallery” – Here’s where we’ll post photos of events just as soon as we have them. If you’ve got photos of past biking events in JP, please let us know and we’ll add them to the gallery!

On the right hand side bar you’ll also notice some amazingly useful widgets, such as:

Upcoming Events – this is a Google Calendar feed of all our upcoming events. Just click the links and Google Calendar opens right up for you to view our month-at-a-glance. If you have an event you’d like to add the JP Bikes Google Calendar, you can either let us know in the comments, or sign up for a free Google Calendar account (http://www.google.com/calendar) and add the event directly to the calendar yourself! The JP Bikes calendar is open to public editing.

JP Bikes on Twitter – If you have a Twitter account, any time you add “#jpbikes” (without the quotes) to one of your Twitter posts, it will show up in our sidebar! Now you can let everyone know, say, the status of the Southwest Corridor this morning, or if you’re leaving on an impromptu ride on a Friday afternoon. Very useful for up to the minute biking news!

You’ll also see a forum added soon. We’ll either be linking it here via another site with forum software, or adding a page (ideally) for you to tab to. The purpose of the forum will be to help build the JP Bikes community by getting everyone to talk to each other and plan rides, meetings, and just commiserate about life in general.

If you’ve got any other suggestions for improvements to the site, or you’d like to help out with some of these media projects and maintenance, please let us know in the comments and we’ll definitely get back to you!

Right now the next general meeting is scheduled for Feb 25th, but that will probably be pushed back, so stay tuned for a status update.

In case you didn’t notice.  We’ll be overhauling the JP Bikes epicenter over the next few weeks so it’s bright, shiny, and useful.  Keep checking back for Twitter updates (side bar) on biking conditions around Boston, and ride, meeting, and event updates as they come in.

- Jen